Housing Office Tells Garage Landlords, Tenants Not to Panic

Worried that owners of illegal garage apartments will hear of a proposed crackdown and evict their mostly poor tenants, city housing officials have begun a series of appearances on Spanish language radio and television to remind landlords and tenants that the measure has not yet been passed.

The public-service interviews were to begin Wednesday night in response to a query by KVEA Channel 52 and continue today as word spread of potentially strict enforcement of building and zoning codes.

“We’re telling people that this is a proposal, that it’s not the law,” said Sally Richman, head of policy and planning for the Los Angeles Housing Department.

Meanwhile, however, Councilman Hal Bernson hastened action on the plan by introducing three motions Wednesday that would indeed make renting out an illegally converted garage a criminal offense.

The City Council put the motions on a fast track, asking that the city attorney’s office draft a proposed ordinance within 60 days.

Bernson’s actions followed quickly on the heels of a decision Tuesday by three City Council committees to reject a proposal to bring some of the city’s estimated 50,000 to 100,000 garage apartments up to minimum safety standards, and in some cases legalize them.

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The members of the Public Safety, Planning and Land Use Management committees concluded that the recommendations by a City Hall task force were not in the best interest of the public, particularly in light of the deaths of eight people since December in garage apartment fires.

“Nobody will be thrown out immediately,” said Greig Smith, Bernson’s chief of staff. “They will be forced to relocate eventually, but it’s for their own benefit because this is unsafe housing.”

Bernson’s proposals, which would make it a misdemeanor to rent out an illegally converted apartment, would also force landlords to pay their tenants’ relocation costs. One of Bernson’s proposed measures calls on state legislators to make landlords guilty of a felony if someone is injured or dies in an illegally converted garage apartment.

Under Bernson’s plan, landlords would have a 90-day grace period in which they could come forward without penalty, admit that they have illegal apartments on their property, and make plans for relocating tenants. After that, property owners found to have such units could be fined $1,000. The possibility of jail is not addressed.

That plan is the opposite of a course of action recommended by a task force of the city’s top housing, building and safety, planning and fire officials. The task force, saying that illegal garage apartments make up a substantial portion of the city’s housing stock, proposed allowing landlords to fix up some of the units and make them safer, so that tenants are not forced out.

“You’ve got to have both the carrot and the stick,” said William Fulton, publisher of the California Planning and Policy Report. “You’ve got to have the potential punishment, but you’ve also got to have a partial legalization procedure that allows an upgrade of these units to some extent.”

Just cracking down, he said, is meaningless unless the city can find affordable alternatives for tenants--and find the resources to enforce the new laws in the first place.

Anxiety is so high about the prospect of mass evictions that the housing department’s phones starting ringing this morning in response to newspaper reports about Bernson’s plan, according to Richman. After a Spanish-language television station called with questions about possible evictions, department officials decided to release a statement telling people not to panic.

Nonetheless, Richman said she was “really worried” about public perceptions. “The message that’s going out is that council is not going to allow the legalization and we’re going to make it a misdemeanor and throw everybody out.”

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The original statement--which urged landlords “not to make people homeless”--was toned down, however, due to concerns that advising people to remain in illegal units might open up the city to liability in the event of another fire.

“We’re no longer saying don’t panic,” said Richman.

Instead, the statement says that it’s illegal to live in garages and cites the two recent fatal fires, but emphasizes that the Bernson proposal is not yet law. It urges tenants to phone the city to learn of their rights and suggests ways to make existing garage apartments safer.

Richman said housing officials also hope to appear on English-language news broadcasts in the coming days.